Pat Boone's 1997 album, In A Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy was completely composed of covers of heavy metal songs, as opposed to his usual fare of R&B, country, and gospel (though they were still done in his milquetoast Big Band/Lounge-style, of course). The CD cover featured the normally clean-cut Boone in leather and chains, an outfit he would also wear at the 1997 American Music Awards. He looked ridiculous, but it didn't do him any favors with the Moral Guardians that make up his primary demographic, who thought he was being serious.

This review proves that, amazingly, even some critics didn't get that it was a joke.

"Colors by Between The Buried and Me has this in each song. For example, Ants of The Sky has a Pink Floyd-esque guitar solo, thrashing a-la Metallica and Megadeth, intense speed-metal screaming, shredding sections that would make Joe Satriani and Dream Theater proud, and a hoedownIn a single song. The thing is that the styles switch nearly immediately, and doesn't sound bad. This comes up in their post-Colors albums too, such as in "Disease, Injury, Madness" when it turns bizarrely into a swingy blues jam following a horse's whinny, or "Extremophile Elite" where all the metal instruments drop out giving way to a small orchestra backing a xylophone solo.

The Commodores: The five-man group from Tuskogee, Alabama — most famous member Lionel Richie — began as virtually an all-funk music group. Their first two albums were exclusively uptempo funk, including the group's first hit single "Machine Gun" (an instrumental) and their follow-up, 1975's "Slippery When Wet." As important as that sound remained in the group's repertoire, their early fans were certainly thrown for a loop when, in early 1976, they heard a song called "Sweet Love" and learned this smooth ballad, with Richie providing the lead vocals, was by that same band that produced all those cool, funky songs. Strange, since now their ballads ("Just to Be Close to You," "Easy," "Three Times a Lady," "Sail On," "Still" and "Oh No" among them) are their best-known hits.

Roger Miller, who was known for some of country music's best-known novelty tunes ("Do-Wacka-Do," "Chug-a-Lug," "Dang Me") was also the guy who wrote the best tribute song to hobos, the quintuple Grammy Award-winner "King Of the Road" (about a hobo who relishes his freedom), to honky-tonk standards like "Half a Mind" (for Ernest Tubb), and the guy who wrote the Tony-award winning Broadway musical "Big River" (adapted from Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn").

Neil Young put out three such albums in a row, much to the consternation of his label (Geffen famously tried to sue him for delivering "unrepresentative material"): First there was the heavily synth-filled Trans, then The Fifties rockabilly throwback of Everybody's Rockin', and finally the country album Old Ways.

The first eleven songs on the Remedy Drive album Magnify are all pretty standard rock (and the occasional bass solo). The last one, "Smile Upon Me", is acapella three-part harmony.

By 1993, R.E.M. had 2 massively successful albums with Out of Time (Shiny Happy People, Losing My Religion), and Automatic for the People (Everybody Hurts, Man on the Moon). Both albums, especially the latter, were relatively slow, emotional albums, with string and acoustic instruments everywhere. In 1994, however, they released Monster, with loud, grunge-y, distorted guitar on nearly every single track note The lone exception was "Tongue", a piano-based ballad, albeit one with a very brief distorted guitar solo... And even that song sounded pretty different due to Michael Stipe singing most of it in a nearly-unrecognizable falsetto.

Incidentally, those two prior albums fit the trope as well, as the band's major label contract was triggered by the success of the 1987 album Document (It's the End of the World As We Know It, The One I Love), which consisted almost entirely of songs that were, by the band's standards, real rockers. The interceding album, 1989's Green, seemed to be following that pattern, with just a few acoustic songs between upbeat rock songs like "Stand," "Orange Crush," and "Pop Song '89."

Keane's first 2 albums were straight piano rock, very similar to Coldplay or Ben Folds. Their third album, Perfect Symmetry, had a very 80's inspired sound featuring heavy synths, prominent basslines, a wide array of instruments, and, for the first time since well before the release of Hopes and Fears, guitars. Their next album, Strangeland, was straight-up piano rock in a similar style to Hopes and Fears.

"Golden Brown", a sincere, harpsichord-led baroque pop single by punk band The Stranglers. It is their most acclaimed, popular and best selling song.

This goes for their entire career from that moment on, as they shifted to moody baroque pop, and later to AOR.

Minor example: A Day in the Life is a soft, sad-esque song about a guy who reads in the newspaper the story of an unlucky man, the war, a car crash, a suicide, etc. By the middle of the song, it starts an upbeat ballad about going late for work.

Hardcore Punk band The Bronx, after releasing three self-titled albums, released an album of mariachi music under the name "Mariachi El Bronx" in 2009, followed by another in 2011. Both albums are critically acclaimed.

Outkast did this twice in a row. 2003's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below was a double album with each disc being a solo effort from one half of the duo: Big Boi's Speakerboxxx a conventional hip-hop album and Andre 3000's The Love Below being more experimental. In 2006 they released Idlewild, the soundtrack to their 20's-era musical, meaning most songs were more of a jazz style, plus there were only a couple songs that Big Boi and Andre performed together. To recap, Outkast has not released a standard album since 2000's Stankonia.

Bob Dylan's been known to do this from time to time and has had many different genres but Empire Burlesque stands out being a uncharacteristic (though not for The '80s) heavily produced synth pop affair (with one song even leaning slightly towards disco) and then he does it again in the same album by having it end jarringly with the quiet "Dark Eyes" a simply structured track that features only Dylan, a guitar and a harmonica without any studio embellishment whatsoever.

JOJO did this in "The High Road" in this song Coming For You which is pop rock instead of loungy R&B of the album.

Da Yoopers' 1992 album Yoopy Do Wah, the last full album to feature original guitarist Joe Potila, was also the only album after their first not to include comedy skits between the songs. It also included "When One Love Dies", their first serious song since the Early Installment Weirdness of their debut.

Alan Jackson did this twice in 2006: first with a gospel album called Precious Memories, then a few months later with Like Red on a Rose, a smooth, ballad-heavy AC album that was a radical departure from his neotraditionalist country sound. The latter was also the only album of his career which Keith Stegall did not produce (bluegrass singer Alison Krauss produced).

The Beastie Boys' Aglio E Olio (a Hardcore Punk EP) and The Mix-Up (an album of instrumental soul-jazz). Neither style was entirely new to the bandnote They actually started out as a hardcore punk band and occasionally made nods to those roots, and funk and jazz influenced instrumentals were prevalent on Check Your Head and Ill Communication, but they were still pretty unusual outings for a rap group.

George Strait's 2009 album Twang is a double example: it had his first songwriting credits since his 1981 debut album, and it included a mariachi cover. 2011's Here for a Good Time includes more co-writer's credits, one being the very atypically dreary and downbeat "Drinkin' Man". The latter was his lowest peaking single to that point.

Kenny Chesney released Be as You Are (Songs from an Old Blue Chair) in 2005. It was a laid-back, acoustic album based around the song "Old Blue Chair" from his album When the Sun Goes Down two years prior. Be as You Are intentionally did not produce any singles. Despite being a side project, it went to #1 on both Top Country Albums and the Billboard 200, and was certified platinum. In a zig-zag of this trope, he also began including several laid-back, acoustic numbers on subquent albums as well.

Japanese pop star Ayumi Hamasaki does this on most of her recent albums. 2005's "(miss)understood" started off with an upbeat gospel anthem only to jump to electropop 4 minutes later - and then to rock...and then dramatic over-the-top ballads. She somehow manages to put songs inspired by symphonic metal, classic rock, musical showstoppers, pop ballads and electropop in very, very close proximity on 2012's "Party Queen"

Florence + the Machine's "Kiss with a Fist" is more rock than all the other songs on the album Lungs, due to being based off an earlier indie rock song called "Happy Fist".

In the documentary Long Way to the Top: Stories of Australian Rock & Roll, Angus Young of AC/DC recalls that, for some reason, the band decided to play the theme from Zorba the Greek at one show.

EBM pioneers Front Line Assembly pulled this at least twice, first with the Industrial Metal album Millenium, then the IDM/D&B album Flavour of the Weak, and to a lesser extent the dubstep-influenced AirMech soundtrack.

Kiss' 1981 album, "(Music From) The Elder", a concept album that featured an orchestra and choir. Universally regarded as the worst album of their career.

Yes' 1984 comeback album, "90125", which focused more on shorter radio-friendly singles instead of the long, expansive, complex epics the band was known for in the 1970's.

Michelle Branch is a pop rock artist, but the final song on her debut album The Spirit Room, "Drop in the Ocean", uses the Bolero Effect beautifully, starting from ambient, to slow-tempo pop rock, and then to drum & bass.

This can also be applied to her pairing with Jessica Harp to form The Wreckers, a country music duo.

Marc Ribot rose to fame as an avant-garde jazz guitarist, helped shaping the cabaret rock of Tom Waits, and after a string of particularly abstract albums he made a mellow tribute album to cuban jazz.

Country Music artist Cledus T. Judd, whose repertoire is mostly parody songs and original comedy songs, has occasionally recorded serious songs: "Leave You Laughing" on Cledus Envy, "Funny Man" on Bipolar and Proud, and "104 Amanda Street" on Parodyziac!!

"Wife Naggin'" on 2000's Just Another Day in Parodies is the only time he ever parodied a song that wasn't a single (specifically, "Sin Wagon" from the Dixie Chicks' Fly).

His Christmas album, 2002's Cledus Navidad, has only two parody songs, neither of which is contemporary to the album's release ("Ring of Fire" and "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth"). It also has three cover songs and only five original songs, of which one ("Merry Christmas from the Whole Fam Damily") is a re-issue.

Florida Georgia Line is known for being the Trope Maker and Trope Codifier of "bro country" — rap-influenced Country Music about partying — in The New Tens with their breakthrough smash "Cruise". But they've invoked this trope twice now with the release of more serious ballads: "Stay" (a breakup song and a Cover of Black Stone Cherry) and "Dirt" (a reflective praise of small-town, salt-of-the-earth types). The latter, the lead single to their second album, was widely lauded by critics as their best single by far. The same is true to a lesser extent on their second album's final single, "Confession".

As of third album Dig Your Roots, the ballads seem to be their primary direction, as the first two singles ("H.O.L.Y." and "May We All") are more serious ballads as well.

The fourth album by mind.in.a.box, R.E.T.R.O. departs from the band's signature cohesive narrative of Sequel Songs, having no story and minimal lyrics, and is also a New Sound Album, being a Retraux throwback to the MIDI music of the Commodore 64 era of computing.

The video for country music artist Sam Hunt's massive hit "Take Your Time" is something that fans of the song may completely not expect: Instead of a lighthearted song about a male barroom patron just wanting to have a conversation with a fellow female customer that he might be interested in, the video's storyline is a dark Domestic Abuse story.

Garth BrooksThe Life of Chris Gaines. A pop-style concept album from a country singer, intended to be a preview to a movie that never came to pass. As an SCD within an SCD, the final track, "My Love Tells Me So", is from the group Chris Gaines was in before he broke out. He was not the lead singer in that group (though he did have a spoken-word riff during the bridge of that song.)

Ray Stevens, one of the most popular novelty singers of all time, was not afraid to release some more serious material in between. In fact, two of his biggest hits — the sensitive ballad "Everything Is Beautiful" and a cover of Johnny Mathis' "Misty" — were completely serious. Other notable serious songs in his catalog include "America, Communicate with Me", a cover of Albert E. Brumley's gospel standard "Turn Your Radio On", and "Would Jesus Wear a Rolex", all of which stand at odds to the goofier songs he is just as known for such as "Ahab, the Arab", "The Streak", or "Gitarzan".

Jud Strunk, a member of the comedy troupe that made up the latter days of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, was known for recording comedic tunes on several of his albums. His biggest hit, however, was not comedy, but a gentle, sentimental ballad called "Daisy a Day," a song about a young boy and girl who meet early in their elementary school years, he gives her a daisy each day to show his undying love and devotion ... and repeats the process for the rest of their lives (70-plus years), including after her death. The song, a top 15 pop hit and also a top 40 country hit, had since become a country standard.

In an album with 7 other crushing metal tracks with intense negative emotions, "Crossing Over" by Cult of Luna emphasizes atmospheric keyboards and even ends with a major key melody reminiscent of Sigur Ros.

Country Rap artist Colt Ford's 2016 single "4 Lane Gone" is a departure for him, as not only is he actually singing instead of rapping (which he has done on a few other songs, but usually only on the chorus), but it's also a completely neotraditionalist country ballad with no rapping at all.

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